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Yup. Same mechanism as mass public shaming, but with two loose fronts warring over interpretations. So you get "Peterson is Jesus on the Cross" vs. "Peterson believes women should be kept on a retractable leash." Neither of which is a real person.

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Kenneth Folk

@KennethFolk

Feb 15, 2018

Concise explanation of the controversy around Jordan Peterson. Thread: twitter.com/danlistensto/s

1:28 PM · Feb 16, 2018Twitter Web Client

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Public lynch mobs are universally pathetic, morbid affairs that reveal nothing but our worst natures. We may as well be back to public executions. Ditto for memetic idealization of individuals. Peterson's followers are all caught up in the Great Leader meme he professes to hate.

Cinder

@Triquetrea

Feb 16, 2018

I suspect oversaturating your consciousness with meme-production of the variety you see all over the internet can cause permanent brain damage. E.g. how many 4chan users seem to have lost all critical thinking faculties, while thinking they're very intellectually sophisticated.

Cinder

@Triquetrea

Feb 16, 2018

Plastering some pithy phrases into an image or some other pre-existing template is mostly just a symbolic distillation of thought. But when you habitually reduce thought output in a social group to symbolism, that's the kitsch melting pot that breeds cults & social movements.

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he's more objectionable than that thread makes out. Mostly, however, he's just boring and second rate. And he did court controversy, and has done very well out of it, so I don't think I'll worry much for him.

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Well, I both agree and disagree. I don't think his contributions to psychology is at all boring and second rate. I do think almost all his political opinions are, and that he treats them with the same self-seriousness as his much more sophisticated psychological research.

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